Gender disparity is a large and complex social issue, and for being a social construction, it is still present even in more progressive circles, from the most academic environments to the most everyday ones.
Therefore, it is necessary to think about the importance of a feminine and feminist design, to propose plural reflections that reflect a new way of seeing and thinking about design, with a bias that covers issues that seek to achieve gender equality, promoting a quality of life for women in contemporary society, because in a society marked by patriarchal logic, it is important to think about a design that does justice to contemporary reality, that develops feminist, anti-racist and decolonial thoughts.
The educator and designer Katherine McCoy, proposes that designers must free themselves from the obedient, neutral and subservient mentality to industry, and states that all solutions proposed by designers have a bias and that their work is not a neutral process, free of values. The author defines Design as “a powerful tool, capable of informing, disseminating and propagandizing social, environmental and political messages as well as commercial ones” (MCCOY, 2018)
In fact, it is notorious the female presence over the years occupying spaces and conversations that mediate Design and other sciences. But it is still common for only men to be listed in relevant achievements of the Design scenario, due to remnants of a patriarchal logic that needs to be subverted, in view of this conservative foundation.
Usually in history, women have not had the due recognition of their experiences and achievements, but it is also important to think about these trajectories with a bias of class and color, considering that while in the European art and design circuit, women active in the Bauhaus, pointed as a center of modernity and innovation, were still encouraged to opt for weaving, following the male predominance in other fields such as painting, sculpture and architecture, and yet, being left out or not mentioned when talking about art and design history.
While in the Bauhaus women tried to have their work exercised in a free and recognized way, other women suffragists faced a patriarchal struggle with the search for the right to vote, black women still faced and still face the stigma of slavery and racism, having basic rights denied.
The contemporary design is inserted in the present, but in it must be included on itself the recent past and the historical and sociocultural relations, aiming at the approaches of analysis and interpretation of the artifacts and the content that compose it (MOURA, 2011).
Therefore, it is necessary to break with the norm and challenge the dominant notions, to thus advance on the particularity of the feminist and female experience, because from these dialogues it is possible to achieve advances that can contribute to the legitimization of the recognition of the importance of women in Design.
